American Home Products (AHP) received data from the Mayo Clinic in February 1997 that patients had developed heart valve damage after taking its "fen-phen" drug prescribed for obesity and containing the compound fenflurmaine.
In September, the FDA pulled fenfluramine from the market after an estimated 6.6 million people had used it, stating that the drug may have irreversibly and sometimes fatally scarred users' heart valves.
By mid 2000, over 9,000 lawsuits had been filed against AHP.
The first dozen suits resulted in settlements ranging from $500,000 to $7 million.
The largest reported settlement went to a 55-year old Texas woman in February 2000 for $8 to $9 million.
New Jersey residents filed a class action suit seeking not financial rewards, but payment for medical checkups for healthy people who had taken the drug.
The plaintiffs want AHP to cover the cost of future medical checkups in case problems develop.
AHP was also sued by its marketing partner, Interneuron Pharmaceuticals for concealing the risks of fen-phen.
In October 1999, AHP agreed to pay $3.5 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits nationwide.
In August 2000, a federal judge approved the settlement in which fen-phen users would get up to $4.5 million, depending on their level of injury.
The settlement includes money for future medical monitoring.
Of the estimated 6 million people who took the drug, about 45,000 have opted out of the nationwide settlement and retained the right to sue for punitive damagesl 266,000 registered to join the class action suit.
